“Night, Uncle Henry,” I said again.
“I have to see to a few things tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll be leaving well before you’re up and late coming back.”
My heart fluttered. I breathed deep and tried to calm it, but when the heart knows the truth there’s no telling it lies. That was just the kind of thing they all said before takeoff, stage one in the ditch-the-kid countdown. Three: The lame excuse announcing the all-day or all-night errand. Two: The weeklong trip to help a needy friend or tend a dying relation. One: The job out of state that would take as long as it took. Then blastoff.
“It can’t be helped,” Henry said, looking out my window at the night.
Can’t look me in the eye, I thought, another telling sign. “Whatever,” I said.
“Fred’ll come as soon as he can get here in the morning. He and his wife, Bessie, live up the road, and he helps me around here. I’ll leave his phone number on the kitchen table.”
Sure you will, I thought.
Henry stood in the doorway, backlit by the hall light. He seemed to be trying to think of something else to say, something to make both of us feel easier about things.
“I’m used to it,” I told him.
“What?”
“To people coming and going,” I said. “To being on my own. Been on my own pretty much my whole life. After a while, you get used to it, even get to liking it.”
Another long silence. Henry bowed his head and I heard his breathing, felt him turning over what I’d said in his mind.
“Bull,” he said, and shut the door behind him.
2
I woke up early the next morning, but not early enough. I raced to the landing windows overlooking the front yard. The sun barely haloed the treetops, but Henry’s pickup was already gone.
I headed downstairs in the humid near-dark wearing the clothes I’d slept in. The stairs dipped in the middle with the wear of years, and I closed my eyes and thought about their history. Henry’s mama and daddy had lived here, and more of our kin before that. I pictured generations of my relations climbing up and down: young and old, red-haired, gap-toothed, and pigheaded.
In the kitchen I filled a big mug halfway with coffee, lifted the chipped lid off the sugar bowl, and put in my customary eight spoonfuls. Then I filled the cup the rest of the way with milk. Henry had set a place for me with a bowl and spoon, a box of raisin bran, and—wonder of wonders—a note with Fred’s phone number. Back tonight, it said. He’d signed his whole name, Henry Royster, and then he’d crossed out Royster and wedged Uncle in front of Henry.
I found my turkey sandwich from the night before in the refrigerator, wrapped it in a napkin, and took it with my coffee to look around. There’d been no time for exploring yet. You can tell a lot about people by studying how they live, and today I aimed to nose around in case Henry came back.
Unlike other places I’d lived, Henry’s house had lots of windows and good light. Mama’d lived in the dark, like a mole. When she wasn’t in the hospital or working some scrape-by job, she’d kept to her bedroom during the day with the shades drawn and the door locked. Once in a while I honestly forgot she was there. I’d be reading or drawing in whatever corner of the place was mine, and suddenly she’d shuffle by, thin and pale and red-eyed in her dirty nightgown and bedroom slippers, her hair mashed flat on one side and her dark roots showing. A few minutes later she’d shuffle back the other way, ghostlike, which is how I came to think of her. She’d whisper “Hey, baby” as she passed, if she noticed me at all. The only times she’d put on a little makeup and come to life was at night or between boyfriends. Once she’d snagged a man, she bothered less and less till he was gone.
Lester was the first live-in I remember, though I have hazy memories of other suckers before that. He worked hard, sometimes ten and twelve hours a day, but the center of his at-home universe was a recliner and a color TV ringed with overflowing ashtrays, a twelve-pack or more of crumpled beer cans, and assorted bags of pretzels, popcorn, and corn chips—his idea of a high time.
The only thing bigger than Manny’s TV were his stereo speakers. Our neighbors in the apartments on either side were always banging on our walls and yelling for him to pipe down, which he did, but only to make bets or order pizza. Every inch of the living room was papered in sports sections and racing forms, balled up or torn to confetti when he lost, which was most of the time.
Harlan and Charlie were champion sleepers, twelve to fourteen hours a day if they could manage it, which was the only way anybody could spend quality time with Mama. Ray was a shedder. Everything lay exactly where he took it off or tired of it, like a snake slithering out of its skin.
But Henry’s house was clean and airy, with none of the trash I was used to and no TV in sight. Bedsheets covered the sofa, chairs, tables, lamps, and cardboard boxes in the closed-off front room.
The front hallway told me that a working man lived here. A sledgehammer leaned against
